Access the Contents for this entire series.

Note: This is a word-for-word transcript of an oral lecture and has not been edited to be read as a standalone text. Often the Rav’s tone, pauses, and vocal inflections impart meaning not discernable in the written version. The transcript is provided to accompany the audio lectures in order to help the listener catch every word.

Transcript: I’ll have now to continue the analysis of methodology of a Jewish philosophy of religion in general and of man in particular. Because, whenever we speak about Judaism, it’s very important – it’s unfortunate that many people forget this approach – it is essential that Jewish philosophy of religion be placed in the general perspective of Occidental thought – not to speak about Jewish philosophy of religion from a parochial viewpoint. Then it becomes a sermon, not a philosophy. This is the trouble with many rabbis when they speak about Jewish concepts. They rely on Jewish sources, usually on secondary sources, and without making an effort to place the Jewish viewpoint within a general frame of reference, Occidental thought in general and Occidental religion in particular. And, if we want to interpret Judaism in modern terms, which should make sense not only to the Jew, but to the Gentile as well, then we must change our approach and try to see Judaism under the aspect of general cultural creativity. Of course Judaism has its unique features, its singular world outlook, but, however, in order to emphasize the uniqueness of Jewish thought, we must compare it with concepts of the universal cognitive approach of man. Now that’s what I’ll continue.

Religious anthropology using a non-scientific methodology

In spelling out our religious anthropology – that’s exactly the topic of this series of lectures – in philosophy of man, when I speak of it, I’m not meaning scientific anthropology. In conceptual terms of philosophy of man, we have to reckon with two basic problems, which complicate our task. One problem is universal in scope and in character, and will always be encountered by anybody, not only by Jew, but by any homo religiosus, when he is ready to interpret a subjective religious experience in objective philosophical terms or forms. The first problem is not a specifically Judaic, so to say, dilemma. This dilemma will be faced by everyone, by any homo religiosus, Christian or Muslim alike, when he wants to interpret the religious subjective experience in objective terms.

Over the centuries – and I want to explain what the problem is – over the centuries, and perhaps the millennia, the logos – I mean, this is the comprehensive cognitive gesture on the part of man; I’ll just use the Greek term, the logos – has developed a peculiar methodology of objectification and interpretation of our mundane, subjective experience, I mean, of our sense experience, and this methodology proved to be of enormous advantage to us. I mean the scientific technological approach. Over the millennia, and of course since the rise of modern physics, modern science, with the advent of the Galileo-and-Newtonian physics, the logos has developed an apparatus, a methodological apparatus, how to approach nature, how to interpret our sense experiences – science studying reality under the pragmatic aspect, because it’s the only aspect under which science studies reality, pragmatic utilitarianism, and asking only one question, how. It’s not interested in the why, seldom interested in the what, always interested in the how, how it functions, how it works. [The logos] has gradually created cognitive tools and instruments, such as conceptual means of classification, categorical forms of thought, and unique means of formulation that opened up to us, or to man, actually many hidden nooks and corners in reality.

Since this approach has resulted in man’s gradual conquest of his environment, so we are of course inclined to absolutize, canonize, and hypostatize the scientific approach. When I say scientific approach, I mean the so-called technological scientific approach, as the only gesture of which the logos is capable, and to which the world, or the non-self-orders, will respond – forgetting that reality is not a monolithic affair, it is a many-faceted affair, and lends itself to a variety of interpretations. If we say that the only approach to reality is the positivistic, scientific one, then it would be useless to speak about philosophy of religion. If we want to speak about theology, dealing with objects in which science has absolutely no interest, with which science is not concerned at all, like God, like spiritual existence, like transcendental reality, then, I mean, religion is welcome to it.

But as I said last time, Judaism is not interested in theology. Judaism basically is interested in ontology, which means, in an interpretation of our concrete existential experience. So Judaism actually will have to deal with the same objects with which science deals –  and, not only Judaism, [but] any civilized religion – for instance, with concepts of time, with concepts of causality, concepts of substance, or with the person, man, the mind, the soul, his emotional life, his strivings and feelings and experiences. The question [is], should Judaism avail itself of the same instruments which were developed by science? Then all Judaism could do is just to be a pseudo-psychology. I mean, a Judaic philosophy of man would be either a pseudo-psychology, or a pseudo-psychiatry, or a pseudo-anthropology. [At] best it would be poor apologetics. If this is the case, you could actually dispense with this series of lectures, and I, with my career as a teacher of philosophy of religion. There would be no need for this.

So actually, if we speak about philosophy of religion, it’s apparent that we think that in spite of these tremendous attainments on the part of science, still there is a possibility to interpret reality under many aspects. There is – I mean, cognition is not a monolithic, so to say, approach. There are a variety of aspects under which you may look at reality, and there are many forms of thought, and many categorical apparata which you may employ in your approach.

Pluralistic approaches to the concepts of time, causality, and substance

Even within the scientific realm – what strengthens our faith in that, in a plurality of cognitive approaches? –  what strengthens [it] is the fact that even within the scientific realm, the methodical, logical approach varies and differs in accordance with the particular concern of the researcher. Even within the scientific realm, there is not a monolithic approach.

We’ll take, for instance, the category of time, in which Judaism is particularly interested. [It] is differently used and applied by the physicist, biologist, historian, and psychologist. One, for instance, the physicist, employs time only as a frame of quantitative reference, I would say as a classifying principle within a coordinate system. To speak in physics about past, present, and future is as nonsensical as to speak about meaningfulness in physics, or a system of values for the physicist. There is no past, there is no future, and there is no present. Time is actually quantified, spatialized. It’s time on the clock, spatialized. And we know very well, I mean, whoever has an elementary knowledge of physics, that all physical phenomena occurring in time are reversible and retraceable, theoretically. Practically, you can’t reverse them because of the second law of thermodynamics, because energy is being disorganized in the form of heat. But otherwise – this is only an engineering law, it has nothing to do with theoretical physics. It was discovered by Carnot. Theoretically, I could see, I mean, for instance, a motion, which occurs in time, from here to there – I could reverse the motion. There is no past, there is no bygones in physics. Every process in physics is theoretically and mathematically reversible and retraceable. So this is one approach to the category of time.

You see, while for the biologist – while for the physicist, time is only a principle within a coordinate system –  the biologist, and Bergson already noticed that, sees in time the basis of growth and development, as the forming principle determining the unfolding of the life drama. It’s something more essential to the biologist than to the physicist. I mean, we don’t have to identify ourselves with Bergson, with the idea of creative time, but the category is differently understood.

And the historian or the psychologist, of course, they would equate time, particularly the psychologist, with our existential awareness, with the so-called Cartesian conscientia, with the stream of consciousness, to use a James expression, or the stream of feelings. So you’ll ask the question, either or, what is time? Already for history there is past and present and future. It’s not just a line like Kant described time, a straight line. There is past and present and future. There’s already the confluence of all three dimensions. I mean, to the historian and even to the psychologist, time is not a one-dimensional line, nor a two-dimensional, so to say, surface, but it’s a three-dimensional experience. So you’ll ask, either or, is there a conflict between the physicist and the biologist and the psychologist and historian? Certainly no, no conflict. It indicates only that reality lends itself to a variety of interpretations.

The same is true of causality, and the same is true of substance, and the same is true of many other basic concepts, which actually constitute, I mean, the categorial apparatus which we employ in our cognitive venture to interpret a very strange and peculiar reality which surrounds us. These basic categories, apparently, are not fixed or rigid forms of thought, in which man clothes his intellectual response to the challenge of a world within and a world outside of him, at all levels. They are rather flexible media, subject to change and modification, adjustable to meet the specific demands of an inquiring mind and its peculiar interests. Our categorical system is molded by noetic motifs – it depends what is the motif of my inquiry – that prompt us to investigate a sector of reality under a certain aspect. If the motivating factor is the pragmatic one, and the question is how, then the technological category is employed. I mean, this is the physical or the chemical, I mean, the so-called mathematical sciences. However, when the inquisitiveness is aroused not by the how question, but the metaphysical question of why, then the method of approach changes. It’s shifted from the how to the why or to the what.

In [the] case of awakening of the curiosity of the homo religiosus, we focus our attention not on the how, nor on the what – it’s not so important – but upon the problem of the arche and telos, upon origin, metaphysical origin and metaphysical destiny, upon the wherefrom and whither. And the question of the homo religiosus, which he addresses to reality, is the old Latin problem, question, the old Latin phrase quo vadis, where do you march?

In each instance, the logos adapts itself; the logos, in answering this question, adapts itself to the particular mood – I’m not speaking now about psychological mood, not emotional mood. It’s a cognitive, noetic mood – to the particular noetic mood of the inquiring mind, and hands over to us the media, which are flexible to the purpose of the inquiry, and [which] meet the demands of the particular world perspective into which the results of the investigation will be integrated.

Religious reality not graspable in scientific terms

This we must bear in mind. Otherwise I cannot speak about religious interpretation of reality. Of course, some students of religion, and particularly of religion in modern form, have been misled by their interest in and admiration for the general categories of thought, I mean the strictly mathematical scientific categories of thought, which have been molded by the positivistic approach to reality. They’ve been misled by their admiration for these categories into a distorted account of religion as a world philosophy. They attempted to interpret religious experiences in terms of positivistic, scientific, or secular thinking, thus failing to behold or to see the peculiar structural patterns of the religious experience and its unique aspects, angles, and outlook, and became entangled either in sterile apologetics or in platitudinous sentimentalism.

I believe that you asked me last time what is my attitude toward Reconstructionism, although I have made up my mind not to criticize others, but to try to praise my own merchandise, but, however, one of the basic deficiencies in the Reconstructionist method is exactly what I say, the application of positivistic, scientific categories, concepts, and basic forms of thought to this paradoxical approach of man to God. Somehow this experience does not lend itself to such an interpretation, and if you try to interpret it, then one loses the very core of the religious experience. This is my opinion. I mean, it’s not in the sense of criticism, but it’s more in the sense of debate, I would say. The uniqueness of the religious experience must be preserved and watched very carefully, otherwise there is no use in talking about religion.

[audience member]: […]

[the Rav:] Eh? Logical? Yes, but the logos itself is not a monistic logos, but, apparently, the logos itself can, so to say, disguise itself in many garments, so to say. The logos is not a monolithic, so to say, being, if I may speak of being. The intellect has a variety of approaches, because reality itself has many – there are many facets to reality. And each facet of reality, I mean, actually, requires a specific approach.

The pseudo-scientific terminology used by the laymen of today – I mean, this is one of the troubles of the laymen, that he uses the pseudo-scientific terminology not understanding what’s behind it – is fascinating even for the student of religion, who only half-heartedly admits that the very outlook of religion and science is incongruous, because if it’s incongruous with that –  if science and religion are not contradictory, they are incommensurate, so how can he apply scientific methods or forms or categories, I mean, in order to obtain religious knowledge?

If we want to get a true picture of religious philosophy of man, we must practice caution in our usage of categories, terms and concepts, which are mostly products of our positivistic philosophical metrics, distinguishing themselves by their evenness and homogeneity. Basically, the scientific category is an even category. There is evenness in the category. There is a certain simplicity to the category. Of course, the mathematical equation is a very simple equation, and there is the quality of homogeneity to this scientific approach, while the religious approach is not even. It is a very paradoxical approach. It consists of contradictory motifs and elements which are mutually exclusive. This is the main difference.

And of course, if the categories are borrowed from the positivistic worldview, they cannot accommodate our unique religious experience, which is too paradoxical and too adventurous to fit into a general categorial mold.

Avoiding mysticism

It is self-evident that the formation and formulation of a set of basic concepts of religious thinking, doing justice to the uniqueness and autonomy of a peculiar kind of knowing, is fraught with many difficulties, of course. And we must watch out not to become entangled in mystical daydreaming. I mean, it is exactly what you remarked. There is a danger. As soon as one departs – the positivistic scientific path is a straight one, because any departure can always be checked, and I have a criterion of distinction, and I can always identify whether I am on the right path or I have departed, or I have deviated from the straight road. However, when you begin to develop categories of thinking for religious knowing, then there is the danger of being entangled in daydreaming, in mystical daydreaming, actually which defies the logos completely, and relating ourselves not to reality, but to some dream world. This [is] exactly [why you] should be very careful. Judaism – whatever you may say about Judaism, it was a very realistic religion, very realistic. It never wanted to relate itself to a dream world, to some illusive reality. Because any illusion may become a delusion; the passages is a very easy one. [Judaism] always wanted to cling to the here and now reality without taking any chances, and without engaging in the adventure of a reality which is not accessible to us.

And that’s, of course – it is a problem. It’s a problem. The borderline between religious knowledge and mysticism is a very thin one, and many times one doesn’t know whether he’s still talking sense. Already, I mean, he’s a citizen of a new realm, not of knowledge, but of experience, of a new experiential realm, the realm of mysticism, and my job is not to develop mystical concepts – perhaps they have their merit, they are important, although they are very modern now, in the vogue, because the new new Hasidic revival is based on mysticism – but to interpret Jewish experiences in logical terms. So you have to keep company with the logos, and try not to depart. Because if we’ll forsake of the logos, we may end up, I don’t know where, in an insane asylum.

Not anthropology of religion but religious anthropology

This is a general – but this problem [is] not a specifically Judaic problem. It’s a problem with which the student of religion is concerned. Religion itself can also be interpreted from many viewpoints.

You can give an anthropological interpretation of religion. You’re not looking for the unique features of religion, but, on the contrary, you try to generalize religion, you see religion as an expression of the general cognitive, cultural consciousness, so to say. So then, of course, you apply scientific categories. You can give a psychology of religion. Of course, there is a psychology of religion. This is not religious knowledge – but this is the knowledge – this is [the] psychological interpretation of religion; this is [the] scientific interpretation of religion.

You can also give a history of religion. Of course, there is a history of religion, which is not trying to discover in religion its uniqueness, but on the contrary, to classify religion under general categories.

But we are not interested either in a psychology of religion, or history of religion, or anthropology of religion, or sociology of religion. These are strictly scientific disciplines, very important, but this is not our task. Our task is not a psychology of religion, but rather a religious psychology. Not what psychology thinks of religion, but what religion thinks of man. This is the difference. It’s not a question of anthropology of religion, but a religious anthropology. What religion, I mean – what is the outlook of Judaism with regard to man and the world, particularly man, this strange being? So we cannot use scientific, so to say, premises, or [a scientific] postulate system, but we have to mold unique religious forms of thought in order to be able to interpret our religious experience in logical terms.

This is number one. And this is exactly where we make the mistake between a psychology of religion and a religious psychology. […] A psychology of religion is a scientific discipline. A religious psychology is something else.

The problem of Jewish reticence

Now, we have a second problem to face. The second problem is not a universal problem at all. It’s a specifically Judaic problem. While the first problem is not specifically Jewish, since it pertains to religious knowledge in general, and every homo religiosus anxious to interpret his experience in objective terms would face this dilemma, the second problem ties into a singular Jewish situation. It’s a strange Jewish situation. It’s due to our history, perhaps to our mentality. I don’t know what it’s due to, but it’s strange, and we’ve paid a high price for it in terms of blood and suffering. Whether in itself it’s a positive feature or a negative feature in our mentality, I don’t know. As Spinoza says, I’m not trying to assess now Judaism, only to interpret it, not to laugh, not to cry, not to mourn, or to exult, or to be elated, but simply to describe and to understand. It’s not a question of forming value judgments about Judaism, but more to understand it.

The Jewish homo religiosus is, or perhaps I may use the past tense, was, a reticent person, who – I’ll say [it in] the present [tense] – is a reticent person who hides his inner strivings and soul movements behind the curtain of a disciplined obedience to the Halakhah, and strict observance of the law. The God-man relationship was considered by the Jew as something too tender, too intimate, and too personal, to be subjected to the process of objectification and confession. The Jew always thought that certain relationships belonged [in] the sphere of private experiences, which a person of modesty would not desecrate by passing on information about them to strangers, to others. Of course, in the age where psychoanalysis is so popular, I mean, this sounds a bit queer, but this is a typically Jewish approach.

The Halakhah disliked persons – the Halakhah, I’m speaking about the Halakhah – disliked persons who share with their friends the secrets of their family life. The relationship, according to the Halakhah, between husband and wife, as we are accustomed to call it, between Adam and Eve, is too sacred an experience and must not be vulgarized and defiled by the intrusion of a third person into the private chambers of emotional life. Basically, I have no time here, but I could prove it with certain laws, but I…The Song of Songs says, “heviani hamelekh chadarav nagilah venismecha vach,” “The King has brought me,” it means the beloved one, “into his inner chambers. We shall rejoice,” and the emphasis is placed upon “chadarav,” upon the inner chambers. There is something in man, or between the I and the Thou, if I may use a term coined by Buber, between the I and the Thou, which cannot be objectified and somehow turned over or passed on to an outsider.

And the same is true in the Jewish view of the God-man meeting, not only of Adam and Eve, but of God-man. It’s very interesting that in Jewish mysticism, or even in our traditional literature, the God-man relationship is always identified with and compared to the love between husband and wife, or between man and woman. You know the traditional interpretation of the Song of Songs. According to the traditional interpretation of the Song of Songs, I mean, the whole story, the whole narrative, the whole drama does not represent carnal love, but the so-called relationship between God and man.

So the God-man relationship is also a very intimate one. It takes place not on the outside, not in the world of color and sound, of motion, in the world of things and events, but in the inner depth of the human soul. Externalization and depersonalization – because any externalization of an experience – not even when one is on the psychiatrist’s couch, and he externalizes an experience – it is ipso facto a depersonalization of the experience. The moment the experience leaves the inner recesses of the personality, it becomes an object. It isn’t a subjective experience anymore – I face already my own experience. If it’s known to me and I can formulate it, so it’s not within me, but I face it, I encounter it. It’s already a relationship between I and it, not between – it’s a part of the I. Any externalization or any depersonalization of this passionate, all-consuming love, the love between man and God, in the form of a philosophical essay, or a narrative, or a biographical account, or exposition, is tantamount to an act of defilement.

This was the Judaic approach. Jews were restrained throughout the ages from spelling out their inner experiences. I know; I was brought up in a traditional Jewish home, a home of Talmudic scholars of note. And I was very devoted to my father. My father was very, very committed to me. As a matter of fact, I mean, I still suffer from a certain father complex. But he never told me one tender word. He never kissed me. Whenever we parted, for instance, and certain times when we parted, we simply didn’t know whether or not we’ll see each other again. He just shook my hand. He used to say, bon voyage. He simply could not spell out what he felt for me. Of course, I mean, I used to see the gleam in his eye, and the tremor in his hand. I could understand it. I could feel it. But it was never verbalized. And the Jews – and the same is true of my mother, and the same is true of my relationship to my children.

Perhaps I’m becoming a little too personal. But it is, I mean – not that I’m sharing with you my individual experience, but it’s a general characteristic of the Jew dating back to Moses. When Moses encountered God in the burning bush, and he wanted to come a little closer, to surge forward to this burning bush, so God summoned him and says, al tikrav halom, don’t come too close. There was a certain distance separating man from God. Don’t become too – I mean, the relationship should not be vulgarized. And Moses wanted to see God. So God told him, ki lo yirani ha’adam vachai, a human being cannot see me and survive. And also in the story of the burning bush, vayaster Moshe et panav, Moshe hid his face, ki yareh mehabit el ha’Elohim, he was afraid to look at God.

There are certain experiences which should remain in the inner recesses of the personality. Any attempt at clarification, at analysis, at externalization, at objectification, is tantamount, in our view, to depersonalization. Of course, if it’s depersonalized, it’s also vulgarized.

A sense of shyness held us back from engaging in self-expression and self-revelation. And it’s very interesting that even the Jewish mystics – and the mystics in general, were not shy people. Shyness was a quality alien to the mystic. When you read, for instance, the confessions of, or the writings by Teresa, or by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, or even St. Augustine, his confessions, he’s far from being shy. Many a time he reminds me, when I’m reading St. Augustine, he reminds me of Rousseau. Rousseau was a very arrogant fellow, in speaking about himself. Not in speaking about others, but about himself. There was a certain frankness, and there was a certain, I don’t know, a certain objectivity. He was not restrained to tell us everything, with regard even to his father. Of course, there was an antagonism between him and his father, and his relationship, his peculiar relationship to the mother, St. Augustine, after he was a bishop, and a famous Christian. In Jewish mystics, we have a rich literature of Jewish mysticism, but never a biographical literature. You’ll never find any biographical notes. They always speak in general terms, nothing revealing about the mystic himself, about his intercourse with divinity, about his private experiences, about the development, about the emergence of his worldview, how it happened, I mean the background; we have nothing.

Basically, if you study the Bible, you’ll find a very strange method in the Bible. The Bible speaks about Moses, the accounts about Moses, the accounts about Abraham. So, examining, I mean, the narrative in the Pentateuch, you’ll find out that all you know about Moses is his life story over a period of two or three years. Nothing else. Of his youth, the Bible reports only two incidents, the incident of his birth, of course, and then his encounter with the Egyptian and the Jew, and then he escaped to Midian, and when he came back to Egypt, he was, according to the account in the Bible, eighty years old. So, when people close their autobiographies, the Bible begins to tell us about Moses, at the age of 83, and then all you have in the entire account, biblical account, you have only, I mean, the events of two years, because before he sent the scouts to Israel, it’s one year, then thirty-eight years, they sojourned in the desert. There is no account of the thirty-eight years. And then you have, I mean, the story of his last year in life – again reticence, shyness. All the important highlights are disclosed; the rest is of no interest to us. Private life – Moses is only as important as his life ties in with the Jewish community. Moses as a private person is irrelevant to us.

And the same is true of Abraham, the same is true of Isaac, the same is true of Jacob, the same is true of all biblical figures – again, this type, this shyness, no biography, no biographical knowledge. Nothing. It’s just an enigma. It’s a void.

Now, of course, gentlemen, if the passage from a subjective experience to an objective description, from our […] spiritual perceptions to well-organized philosophic comments, is a tortuous one – it is not easy to find the winding path leading from feeling to action, from inner movement to external attitudes, from the heart to the mind, from vision to thought, from emotion to concept, because the Jew always stopped in the middle. The emotion is not translated into a concept. Did he have a concept? He never tried to verbalize it. If he verbalized this concept, he never wrote it down, with the exception of Jewish law. If he wrote it down, he never published it.

And so, I mean, we simply don’t know much about Jewish philosophy. The beginning of Jewish philosophy we find in the Middle Ages, with Maimonides, Saadya. Basically, it was an apologetic literature, not an original, unique Jewish philosophy. This, perhaps, has prevented – I said we paid a high price for this – this has prevented us, and I am convinced that it is true, from influencing the Gentile world prior to the beginning of the Common Era, when the idolatrous, polytheistic, mythological world view was shut out, and the heathens were ready to embrace a spiritualized form of religion and a new ethical code, so, then there was a chance for Judaism to step forward and give to the Romans and the Greeks, the culture of peoples of that age, I mean, their interpretation of life. It would have been a success, I am sure. But the Jew was too shy. He was too shy. He was afraid. He didn’t spell [it] out. And of course, who stepped in? Christianity. And how did Christianity influence, so to say, Occidental culture? Not by the Christian myth – because Christianity always – you have to look under a double aspect at Christianity; the aspect of the Christian myth, which is basically [a] mythological motif, the whole concept of trinity, the birth and death, the idea of atonement by blood; and the second aspect under which we must see Christianity is the ethical one. And of course, there is no doubt – now theologians, I mean, neo-theologians will admit it readily – that the ethical, so to say, foundation of Christianity is Judaic, from A to Z. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, you see how close Christianity is to Judaism. There was no need, basically, for scholars of Judaism to know the affinity between the Christian ethics and the Judaic ethics. Basically, there is nothing new in Christian ethics. It’s only a question of emphasis.

Why didn’t the Jewish community of the Second Commonwealth perform a similar job? Perhaps the whole course of Jewish history would have been changed, no doubt about it. And we could have avoided many problems, dilemmas and troubles, if we could have persuaded, I mean, the Roman Empire to embrace Judaism. At least the Roman aristocracy, the so-called Roman intellectuals, the decadent, sophisticated intellectuals, who are very – who simply remind me always, it reminds me, modern man reminds me of the old Romans. Rather, I would say, very – modern man is reminiscent of the old Romans, his very sophisticated, abstract thinking, I mean, skeptical approach to the world, but still yearning for ultimates; not having ultimates, but still yearning for ultimates; not believing in any absolute values, but still searching for them. This was a terrific chance for Judaism. Judaism missed the boat.

Already the Kuzari, Yehudah Halevi of the Middle Ages asked this question. He gives an apologetic answer. If Judaism had become the religion of the majority, it would have been vulgarized and our pages would have been stained with blood as the pages of the Christian Church. Perhaps this is true, perhaps it’s untrue, I don’t know, but it’s not a question of justifying, or indicting, or defending, I mean, the Jews of the Second Commonwealth. They simply couldn’t do that. They couldn’t. My father couldn’t confess his love for me; they couldn’t simply confess their love for God.

Of course, they wanted to pass on to the Romans a strict system of halakha, of laws. The Romans were not ready to accept it. And our reticence, and our shyness, and our silence about matters, about subjective experience, is also responsible to a great extent for the malicious accusation on the part of our foes, and friends perhaps alike – I don’t say that everybody who tries to indict us of certain faults of ours, or failures of efficiencies, is an enemy. Perhaps he’s a friend as well – the accusation about rabbinic legalism, of the fossilization of the religious experience in a mass of technical details, of losing sight of God because of the too many laws. It’s not true, gentlemen. I’m not apologetic here, but the outsider, I don’t blame the outsider if such a charge is made by him, because we simply were reticent. We didn’t tell him about it. How can he know if we didn’t confide in him? The truth is that the Jewish homo religiosus is only ashamed to betray his inner secret status. The ecstatic experience of encountering God is too precious a possession to which the lovesick soul clings, and which it refuses to share with others. That’s all. Perhaps it’s egotistic, I mean, egocentric. But there is no lack of this subjective, passionate experience as far as Jewish religion is concerned.

And behind the abstract halakha, the formal legalistic principles, the homo religiosus, the Jewish homo religiosus, beholds a wonderful vision of infinity. Somehow he never told about it to anybody. And this makes our task more difficult. Because we simply don’t have a continuous tradition of interpretation.

For instance, imagine that if there would be no platonic school of interpretation, there would be no platonic tradition in the occidental culture. We wouldn’t be able to interpret Plato, because he’s so far from us. He’s so distant. I don’t mean distant in years, in terms of chronology, but distant in concepts, in ideas, in categorical approach to reality. But what makes an interpretation of Plato possible for us is this tradition. We, unfortunately, have a very loose tradition of religious philosophy. That’s what makes our task, if we are about to interpret Jewish philosophy in modern terms, more difficult and very complicated. And that’s why many books on Jewish philosophy are either – what I say, it is just an act of proselytization of Christian concepts, taking Christian concepts and introducing them into a Judaic system – or it’s modernization, just apologetics, or it’s complete distortion of the very core of the Jewish religious experience. It’s not the fault of the interpreters, it’s perhaps the fault of our history, or perhaps of our peculiar mentality.

Now…yes?

[audience member:] Is there a divine stimulation for this reticence, shyness, that is inherent within Jewish man? Or is this a kind of thing that he just took out of air, or just grew with? Or is there a divine quality to it?

[the Rav:] [It is] the quality of what you call in Hebrew, tzniut, modesty. The quality of modesty, tzniut, is basic in the Jewish code of ethics. But tzniut not only with regard to my carnal behavior, to my physiological drives, impulses, but also to my spirit, with regard to the spelling out of my emotional experiences. Whether it’s a good quality or a bad quality, I’m not ready to judge. I don’t know. But it is modesty. The Jew is a modest person. It’s hard to say sometimes, of [the] modern Jew, but a traditional Jew, it is true, he was a modest person. Yes, sir?

[audience member:] I noticed that you said the homo religiosus “was,” and then you said…

[the Rav:] I’ll tell you frankly, I don’t know where the modern Jew can be found, so that’s why I’m mixed up about the tenses. Sometimes I use present tense, and another time I use past tense. I don’t know where to place the modern Jew. I don’t know.

[audience member:] In this matter, your relation to your son, your relation to your father, I will also externalize an experience. Up to a certain age, I held to that behavior in reference to my son, until he was about twelve. Not so much because of the cognition of what it is in me that did that, that’s the way we were brought up. As Jews, we didn’t observe birthdays, we didn’t observe anniversaries, and so on. That’s the way I was brought up, and that’s the way I behaved towards my son. I gave myself a very severe thinking through, and decided that I would have to change, and changed, and changed radically the other way. At that point I thought that the “was” and “is” is very significant. In today’s world, shall we not rethink this tradition? Shall you not rethink that?

[the Rav:] […] a lot of my troubles […] a lot of my problems […] I paid already. But, I say, Dr. Eisenberg, the fact that we are here, it means that we are breaking with this tradition, otherwise I wouldn’t be here – not with regard to my son, but with regard to the more intimate relationship, God-man rendezvous. Perhaps, I didn’t say it is very important. I didn’t say, I said before, it’s not a value judgment, it’s just a statement of fact. I didn’t say perhaps, perhaps, we’ll speak, we’ll come to this problem later. We’ll try to understand it.

[audience member:] I think that’s troubling, but I’m just wondering whether, in the light of today, whether we ought not to reconstruct?

[the Rav:] Perhaps. Perhaps we have to change many things in Judaism. I don’t know. I’m not suggesting any practical methods of approach, but just trying to state facts. Yes?

[audience member:] I’m trying to relate this to our whole concept of our helping profession in the social welfare field, as Jews, where the basic concept of tzedakah, and the recognition of the need to help someone else, and our function, very often, brings us into the realm of having, of sharing, a person who comes for help sharing with us some of the experiences, and I’m trying to relate this to your…

[the Rav:] Yes. Yes, of course, in tzedakah, you know, I mean, I have to tell you, in tzedakah, anonymity is very important for the Jewish law – anonymity in tzedakah, but however, many times, not only psychiatrists, the rabbi as a rabbi, you know, and the fact that a man can come to me, simply cry on my shoulder, that’s all, I mean. I’m just as clever as he is, I mean. I have not, I haven’t, I haven’t more wisdom than the person, than the congregant who comes to me for advice. But the fact that he can lean on my shoulder and cry, and share what troubles him, is already a help. It’s already, I mean, and, and we know, we know about it in Jewish law. The expression, da’aga be’lev ish yesichena, if a man is worried, let him tell it to others. I mean, it’s known to us. So it means, what I said, it’s not always, it shouldn’t be taken at its face value, I mean, as the, as a central principle, it’s more a feature of our mentality. And many times, we have to break with this tradition, I mean, in order to help others, no doubt about it. Otherwise, I mean, on the contrary – I’ll come to it later – there is, later is also, I mean, another aspect, of course, a contradictory aspect, of sharing, of sharing joy with others, of sharing, of sharing sadness, and worry, and trouble with others. But we’ll come to it. But you are right, I mean, this social service is based not on being secretive, on being shy and reticent, because there should be some relatedness, that the person who asks for help, and the social worker – I’m perhaps venturing into a field which is, it’s arrogant on my part, but as I understand social work, there’s a mutual relatedness; the social worker has to relate himself to the person who asks, who applies for help, and the person who applies for help must have confidence, compliant. So, of course, I mean, introducing this method of, so to say, of keeping my secrets, my experiences for myself, and of being bottled up, and not [to] externalize what I feel, would create dilemmas and problems, for any kind of social service that […], no doubt about it.

But what I wanted to say is that philosophy of religion – that’s why philosophy of religion did not occupy a central place in Judaism, because it simply did not spell out what we felt. I mean, that’s all I wanted to say. Will you allow me to go on for a while?

Religious anthropology as a deductive, a priori, postulate system

Now, all right, we’ll have to develop a religious anthropology. This religious anthropology, contrary to scientific anthropology – already, I mean, here we, we see already the distinction – contrary to scientific anthropology, will be based upon a priori premises, and operates in a fashion similar to that of pure mathematics and physics, with a postulate system. Of course, the religious anthropology is not an experimental anthropology. It operates with a postulate system, which came down to us from the very dawn of the charismatic community, and which is rooted in the deepest strata of the paradoxical God-man-fellowship awareness. It’s a postulate system, as, for instance, in geometry, the parallel system. You can’t prove it, but you operate with it.

Our method of research would be not inductive, but deductive. Because if there is a postulate system, you know very well, any science with a postulate system is a deductive science, like mathematics or physics is a deductive science. We presuppose certain axiomatic verities about the nature of man, his enigmatic existence, his unique fate, faith, and destiny, and from this a priori position, we try to gain a full view of this singular being.

Of course, these speculative ideas which are inherent in our religious ontic and meta-ontic experience have been checked in Judaism, and rechecked against historical events and experiences of empirical man. We have always practiced Kantian prudence and restraint. The a priori has served us only as the clue to the factual and the real. Its relevance has been measured by its applicability within the framework of facticity. We have never said, like certain Catholic dogmas, this is our premise and that’s all; take it or leave it; whether reality contradicts this premise, we don’t care about reality. The Jew was too much of a realist. He had a priori premises, not dogmas. Dogma is a word which is absolutely alien to the Jewish religion. A priori premises, a postulate system, like math has a postulate system, and geometry, is the basis of the Euclidean geometry, and even the non-Euclidean geometry has a postulate system, like physics has a postulate system – but the physicists will keep on checking and rechecking. For instance, Euclidean geometry is based upon the postulate system of a three-dimensional space. With the emergence of the non-Euclidean geometry, Lobachevsky, Riemann, and even before when Helmholtz physiologically began to prove the existence, the possibility of a multi-dimensional space, the mathematician had to recheck his postulate system.

You know how physics works now, I mean. At the macrocosmic level, it operates with the non-Euclidean geometry. So it’s checked and rechecked. Gravitation and the idea of body and energy also belong to the postulate system, but with the equation of Einstein this postulate system has been checked and rechecked, and changed.

Judaism has also a postulate system, because it’s impossible – religion cannot be based on experience only, for a simple reason, because we will never find God in experience only. Some people believe in religio naturalis, so-called natural religion. Perhaps there is a yearning for God. Yes, there is a yearning for God. There is a religious impulse which drives man to relate himself to ultimates, to something, to what the neo-Platonic philosophers used to call the epékeina, to the beyond, somehow to find anchorage, to strike roots in reality. Yes, but you would have never found – in experience itself, in our daily routine, we would have never found this ultimate. It’s a postulate system. Yes.

We have never engaged in limitless speculation and postulation, transcending the empirical, and we have never been reluctant to rectify some of our a priori views, if we realize that they run contrary to basic religious and historic realities. Yet, all this has been done with an axiomatic frame of reference.

May I add that within this postulate system, I note – as a matter of fact I called your attention to it last time – we have always had at our disposal several axiomatic patterns, sometimes mutually exclusive, thus enabling us to cope with changing situations and perplexing occurrences in a manner reminiscent of the modern mathematician and physicist, who are not confined to one set of postulates, who are able to interpret a multifaceted reality by taking advantage of a variety of a priori symbols. The so-called Aristotelian principle of contradiction is not valid anymore in modern physics and mathematics. Judaism has never recognized this Aristotelian principle. As I said last time, two contradictions both are true. How is it possible? I don’t know. It’s paradoxical [and] absurd, but this is part of Judaism. So later when I’ll speak about man, you may wonder whether I’m in the right mind, you see, but this will be the method.

From a metaphysic of man to a functional psychology

However – so first we have to develop a metaphysic of man, not a psychology, a functional psychology of man, because if we work with a postulate system, we cannot start with a functional psychology, but you have to start with a metaphysic, [or] philosophy of man – I mean, the term is irrelevant. On the other hand, the metaphysic of man could not remain just another formal doctrine, describable only in terms of discursive thinking. It had to become something more than that. The doctrine had to be transposed into a living creed, to which we are unreservedly committed, and which reveals itself through our total behavior.

And let’s not forget the following truisms. The Halakhah, as a practical, regulative discipline, has never subscribed to philosophical abstracts, save in so far as they precede action. If I need a philosophical abstract […] otherwise, a concept doesn’t mean anything. The Jew always emphasized action. In its insistence, in the Halakhah’s insistence upon the deed, and its attempt to guide man in both the subjective and objective existential areas, the Halakhah is being concentrated upon functional themes within our metaphysics. Not so much about speculation, but – metaphysics is important, but in so far as metaphysics can be translated into a functional theme, into a functional motif. Religious awareness of virtue, which is based upon metaphysical insights, is important. Then noesis, the great concept of speculation, can be transposed into a dynamic force. Then a transcendental experience can be, so to say, objectified into a factum. It is self-evident that the metaphysic of man could not be an exception to this general rule, and Judaism, therefore, was impelled to undertake the transformation of a metaphysic into an actuality, into a functional psychology. Drawing upon the most hidden recesses of our religious metaphysical experience, which is essentially rooted in a self-transcended consciousness, reaching outside of the here-and-now reality, like any other religion, into the eternal and infinite, Judaism has translated these unique experiences into empirical categories and patterns of human behavior, in which we are interested particularly.

Thus the metaphysic of man emerged as a powerful motif in our actual – and emphasis on actual – in our actual self-awareness, capable of shaping and determining our destiny, and of leaving its imprint upon our personality as the latter develops by the patient efforts of a lifetime. It means – of course we start with a metaphysic of man, but Judaism has never started [with] a metaphysic, like Neo-Platonic philosophy, or even Christianity many times. It always tried to find in metaphysical ideas practical motifs, and translate them into functional terms.

Basically – it is very strange here in America, perhaps not with regard to Judaism, but with regard to science in general, when they speak about basic research, when I begin to read the papers, and they say you need basic research in order to advance the frontiers of human knowledge, particularly of knowledge of nature, so they have a funny concept of basic research. When they speak of basic research, they mean also laboratory research, research determined by the trial-and-error method. I’m speaking about papers, journalists, correspondents, but this is a mistaken notion. Basic research means metaphysical intuition.

As a matter of fact, this miraculous transition from metaphysical world formulae to empirical knowledge is not unknown in the history of human thought. The mathematical-scientific interpretation of the universe is also based on such a leap from the a priori to the functional, from the philosophical-metaphysical to the mathematical-theoretical and technological. In fact, it has even begun to dawn upon us, who are steeped in positivistic and pragmatic prejudices, that the scientific explanation of the cosmic process, contrary to the opinion of the uninitiated layman who considers it to be a result of trial-and-error research program, is an expression of a metaphysical approach to reality. And the fundamental method is deductive, the primary procedure a performance of spontaneity, of creativity of man.

The very idea constituting the basis of our scientific inquiry – to me this is the most important idea in science – introduced by Newton and Galileo, of the possibility of mathematization and quantification of our qualitative sense-experience data – without this idea there would be no physics and no chemistry if we cannot quantify and mathematize our sense experiences – this very idea is not an experimental, so to say, advance, but a metaphysical achievement, based on spontaneous creative postulation, rather than on piecemeal fact-finding exploration.

Of course, the experiment confirms or refutes the cogency of the postulated premise – correct – determines the detail, the exact formulation and the practical application. However, the general outline, the basic patterns and principles of our scientific philosophy, which were developed by the fathers of our classical and modern physics, are of an a priori metaphysical strain, and were born not in the laboratory, but in the mind.

And this is, in my opinion, this is one of the basic drawbacks in American research, that everything must be born in the laboratory. Of course it can be born in the laboratory, even if you – one will find, I hope, medical therapy for cancer, and all degenerative diseases, yes – but when we have to push forward the frontiers of knowledge, like Einstein’s theory of relativity, Planck’s theory of quantum mechanics, Schrodinger’s theory of wave mechanics, this is not born in the laboratory. The laboratory confirms, refutes – but this is basically an intuition, the intuition of man, who, like God, is also a creator. And in order to have this intuition, a climate must be developed stimulating this type of work. When the need for a new interpretative approach to reality for the extension of our scientific frontiers becomes acute, laboratory techniques are of no avail, and only the metaphysical genius may intuit and behold new horizons and verities, and translate these a priori ideas into natural laws and mathematical patterns.

I remember during my student days in Berlin, I was very friendly with Dr. Jakob Grommer. He was actually an associate of Einstein. Basically, the mathematical work was done by Grommer. Contrary to popular notion that Einstein was the greatest mathematician, Einstein was not one of the greatest mathematicians. So his technical work, mathematical work, the formulation of his ideas and mathematical equations, was done by Grommer. Grommer was one of the leading mathematicians. Then later he was called to the University of Moscow, and actually, I mean, he is the one who developed, who is responsible for the great advances which Russia has made in the field of science. He was a genius mathematician. I know him because he came from, he was a Russian boy who came to Göttingen, Germany, studied, and became famous. But of course, on account of German anti-Semitism, he had to – he could not, he was not appointed Professor of Mathematics at a German University – he had to leave, and became the head of the School of Mathematics in Moscow University.

So once I asked him, what is – and actually, you’ll find, for instance, in this Einstein’s favorite theme, the unified field, the gravitational, the electromagnetic field, you’ll find all essays by Einstein, all pamphlets, by Einstein and Jakob Grommer – so I asked him once, what is Einstein’s, actually, how does he see Einstein? What is his forte, so to say, his greatness? So I asked him, is it mathematics? No, and he mentioned to me, enumerated a few names, German mathematicians, who were by far superior to him. So what is it? It’s just, he told me that, he used the word, of course, the German word, schauen, which means intuit, to behold. He beholds something. When he sees something, he’s not sure whether it is an illusion, or perhaps it’s a dream, daydreaming, or it’s a scientific idea. But then he begins, whatever he felt – Einstein told him – that suddenly, he ponders over a problem, ponders and ponders, and tries to analyze the problem, and still he doesn’t see light, and suddenly, it’s like a flash goes on, a light goes on, and everything becomes clear, and new horizons beckon to him, and then, whatever he sees in this moment, he tries to develop it.

This is creativity, basically. This is the creativity of the artist; this is the creativity of the poet; it is also the creativity of the scientist. This was the creativity on the part of Newton. The legend tells us about the apple, how he discovered the law of gravitation. What does it mean? A small incident, whatever, [whether] the legend is true or untrue, is irrelevant. But what does it mean? It was not laboratory technique. He was pondering over the problem. His mind was arrested, I mean, by this problem. He had no peace of mind. He wanted to understand why a body should fall downward, and suddenly, a small incident, like the falling of an apple from a tree, on a summer evening, suddenly uncovered new resources in him, new creative resources, and he formulated at that time the law of gravitation, mm/d². So this is exactly what is necessary in order – Germany made tremendous advances in theoretical physics because they had this, I don’t know, because they had a certain inclination for metaphysical thinking. Positivistic philosophy is very nice and good, if you want to simplify matters. It’s very nice. But when a man becomes creative, not only as an artist, but as a scientist in all fields, he should not look at the world under the aspect of simplicity, but on the contrary, under the aspect of paradoxality, and sometimes absurdity. And this encounter with opposition, this encounter with the mysterium magnum, with this alien, strange world, which scoffs at him, and sometimes behaves in an unfriendly manner toward him, if he has this passionate approach, he may simply conquer the world. And this is exactly metaphysics. There can be no science without total involvement. There can’t be anything in this world without total involvement.

And, basically, when I classify, for instance, philosophical schools, and I take the metaphysical school in comparison with the positivistic school, or pragmatic school of Peirce, James, Whitehead, Dewey, all these, so I always have another illustration. It’s the difference between Hasidim and Misnagdim. You see calmness, very common sense, I mean, everything is figured out, mathematically correct, and there is ecstasy – this is on the part of Misnagdim […] I belong to them – on the other hand, there is [the] Hasidic group, ecstatics, always, I mean, the religious experience is passionate, many a time they are not coherent, very paradoxical, but they are more creative. And if it is true of science, it’s certainly true, gentlemen, of religion, certainly true of religion. If there is no total involvement, there is no unreserved surrender; if there is no all-consuming commitment, there is no religion, gentlemen.

Translating the Jewish metaphysic into functional, practical terms via man’s emotional life

At the practical level – so we start with a metaphysic, and we finally develop out of the metaphysic a functional psychology. The purpose of religion and science is the same. Practical results, yes. But the question is, how do you get to them? Can you have a shortcut? So the old saying, by Euclid, [is,] there is no royal road to geometry, and there is no royal road to religion in general, and particularly to Judaic experience – at the practical level – now I am coming to another aspect – at the practical level, how did the metaphysic of man translate itself into functional terms? This is the problem. What is the passage?

We know, in science, what is the passage? It is the mathematical equation. There is a theory, basically a theory, a theoretical theory, for instance, that energy and matter are identical. You know how far it goes back? To the old Greeks. Einstein didn’t discover anything in that, by his famous equation, but what did Einstein find? The passage from a metaphysical illusion – expressed by Heraclitus and Pythagoras, I mean, by all of them, and Aristotle, that there is unity in nature, there is identity in nature. If there is identity in nature, you cannot look at nature under two aspects, under the aspect of energy and under the aspect of matter – it is one. Spinoza knew of it, later in the 17th century. But what did Einstein accomplish? He found the passage from a metaphysical thought, which is nothing more than an illusion, to a scientific fact, by mathematizing the thought, by finding the mathematical equation.

So what is the equation? We can’t speak of mathematical equations; what is the passage, leading from the metaphysics of man to the psychology of man, in religious terms? What is it? It is that at the practical level, the metaphysic of man has found its finest expression in Judaism, in its application to and interpretation and elucidation of our emotional life. In my opinion, when we want to see how the metaphysics of man, which is based on a postulate system and operates with abstract concepts, which one can dismiss as some figments of thought or some imaginary visions – this passage from theory to practice, from vision to reality, is via the emotional medium, via the emotional experience of man.

And Judaism has developed a funny theory. Of course, I’ll show you that this was known later, was proclaimed later by a Christian philosopher. But again, our misfortune, Judaism knew about it in antiquity. It’s known – in [the] history of philosophy it’s known as the theory of a certain Christian philosopher, but, however, Judaism has an elaborate system of that. Judaism has attributed – and I would beg you to pay attention now to what I’m going to say, because this is the basis of our entire discourse –Judaism has attributed metaphysical and logical relevance to our feelings, and has endowed them with an intrinsic truth motif. The affective sphere within man, Judaism says, the affective sphere, I mean the emotional sphere within man – I’ll use the philosophical term for that – within man – not natural man in his full immediacy – the man who rises above his immediate, instinctive, compulsive life functions – because the savage, the jungle man, the cave man did not rise above his compulsive life functions, insofar as his emotional reactions are concerned – and man who tries to gain some sort of independence, capacity for meditation, reflective self-viewing and self-reckoning, of this type of man, who is able to meditate, to reflect, to view himself, who can face himself – the feelings of this man is determined by rational insights into himself and into the world into which he was thrown in.

The emotional act, Judaism said, is related to a cognitive experience. It is based upon a cognitive experience and is not to be separated from man’s metaphysical convictions. There is conviction in feelings. We always think there is conviction in thought but no conviction in feelings. When you say a man, a very emotional man, you say he is very emotional, so in the colloquial it means, I mean, you can’t count on him; he changes like the weather – fair weather friend, that’s all, nothing else – there is no conviction. This is not true, according to Judaism. Emotions have convictions, are endowed with convictions. Judaism treats the sentiments neither as modi cogitandi, in a manner similar to that of the medieval scholars – they also thought it’s modi cogitandi, it’s modes of thinking, but then it was of confused thinking, inferior to the clear cogitatio, for instance in Descartes, of the intellect – nor – Judaism treats the feelings not as being guided solely by pragmatic considerations or instinctive motifs as many classical psychologists maintain – many classical psychologists will tell you that of course feelings are guided by certain motifs, like survival, self-preservation, of course the yearning, man’s drive for pleasure, for self-destruction, I mean you can have all kinds of theories, but these are not metaphysical ideas; these are instincts, perhaps sometimes sublimated instincts, which are reflected in feelings. Now Judaism agrees with that, but this is not what Judaism wanted to say – but Judaism considers the emotional life as an autonomous, singular medium through which the logos addresses itself to man, and the emotional life is equipped with its own unique categorial mode, shaping ideas into feelings and notions into emotional attitudes. As modi cogitandi – this was known to Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, to Descartes, Spinoza, but they dismissed it as confused ideas; as an expression of our basic instinctive drives, natural drives – it was known to classical psychology since Kant, since the 18th century.

It is still actually, I mean in the basic – even in psychoanalysis it is the basic theory, but Judaism speaks about metaphysical ideas, not so much relatedness of man to himself, which could come under the heading of instinctive drives, but relatedness of man to the beyond. They come to expression in our affective life. Thus, the metaphysics of man speaks to us in language not only of the depersonalized intellect, but of a warm and sensitive heart. This approach does not contradict modern psychiatric and psychological methods which try to explain the emotional life by tracing it to the most basic impulses and physical-psychical dynamics. It does not contradict. Judaism, not engaging in any argument with the empiricists, only adds another dimension to the human affective sphere and sees in it noetic – and I am using the word noesis, as the Greeks understood, as metaphysical – noetic patterns and logical structures which reflect the metaphysical transcendental aspects of the human experience. My metaphysical experience is not only expressed through words, of course, logos logoi – in Greek it was the same, thinking and speaking, logos logoi – but it expresses itself through my heart, through my feelings. If I love somebody, if I love, there is some metaphysical idea to it. If I hate, there is some noetic pattern to it. If I resent something, there is some logical, structural pattern to it – sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Science may make mistakes, so certainly, our emotions are also entitled to some margin of error.

Of course, the Jewish, if I may use a term now, the Jewish logique de coeur [logic of the heart], if I may use a Pascalian term – in history of philosophy, Pascal said that the heart is committed to metaphysical ideas, in the famous expression logique de coeur – the Jewish logique de coeur is inferred not only from our anthropological experience – as far as this is concerned, even some empiricists would agree with us – is inferred not only from our anthropological experience, manifesting the will to survive at the minimum of discomfort and pain, but also from a meta-ontic and transcendental source. That is, that the daas, the heart, dominated by logical reasons is not only practical – because according to the empiricists, classical psychology, the heart is practical. Feelings are practical. When I have fear, what am I afraid of? When there is a menace to my existence, it is the instinct of survival that tells us to be afraid. When I enjoy something, when I rejoice, as classical psychologists will tell you, you rejoice because you probably derive some pleasure, or you feel that your survival is more secure. When you are sad, something happened which undermines [that]. It’s just practical. The heart, according to classical psychology, is a businessman, so to say. It’s very pragmatic, only engaged in business. It’s a commercial heart, of course, not the question of selling merchandise, stockings or hats, but selling man himself, his existence. That’s all.

According to Judaism, it is true, the heart is practical, but the heart is also a sentimentalist, I would say. The heart is not only practical, self-centered, cautious – this is according to psychology – cautious and scheming, but also heroic, sacrificing, and visionary, exhibiting the deep-seated yearning in man for something great, redeeming, elevating and meaningful. The heart is not only interested in self-survival, at the minimum of discomfort, but interested in living a great life. I always say, Judaism has never been interested in peace of mind. When Dr. Liebman [Joshua L. Liebman, author of Peace of Mind – ed.] published his book, so I told him, the book is very nice, but it’s not the idea of Judaism. Perhaps it’s rooted in Christianity. Yes. And that’s why for Christians the chapter in the psalm Adoshem ro’i lo echsar, God is my shepherd, I shall not want, became one of the most popular hymns. Why? Because there, in this psalm, the idea of religion, or of fellowship between man and God, [is] expressed in practical terms – because of peace of mind, exactly.

I don’t believe Judaism is so much interested in peace of mind. Judaism, I believe, instead of trying to make man lead a happy life, is attempting very hard to make man lead a great life. And a happy life and a great life are not always commensurate, and I don’t believe there is a mathematical equation between happiness and greatness.

Through the heart the great message of existence, of an existence which neither begins nor ends within the actual finite cycle but reaches outside fact and incident into a realm where both the arche, the origin, and the telos, destiny, are to be found – this message basically is delivered not to the intellect but to the heart. Feelings are provided with noetic motifs which point at the roots of existential actuality and facticity and manifest the most unique experience, namely that of self-transcending. Emotional orderliness, consistency, sincerity and even depth are possible not only within thoughts but also within feelings. We say a thought is shallow; we say a thought is deep – profound thought; we say thoughts are coherent if they fit into a unified system; they are incoherent if they cannot be combined, unified. What about feelings? Judaism believes there are deep, profound feelings – we say profound love – and also shallow feelings; there are coherent feelings which combine in a system of feelings, and there are incoherent feelings – isolated moods, transient moods. There are true feelings and there are false feelings. What means a true feeling? If I love, how can it be true, how can it be false? It means, in relationship to the idea it represents. If a feeling represents a wrong idea, it’s a false feeling. If it represents a true idea, it’s a true feeling.

Judaism – I want to add something else – Judaism has also held the view that there is not only reasons of the heart, a logique de coeur, but also norms of the heart, laws pertaining to the heart. We are used to the idea that laws, laws of conduct, pertain only to our physical acts, to our hands, legs, our speaking, but not to the heart; feelings should not be regulated by norms; I can’t help feeling. Again, if we were to use a Pascalian term, we would say that a logique de coeur is complemented by an order de coeur; there is order in the heart. The conative element in our feelings which drives us to action is interpreted by Judaism in terms of axiological reference, of moral strivings, of value judgments and value patterns. Not only metaphysical ideas reveal themselves to us via our heart, our emotional sphere, but also values are disclosed to us. We intuit values, ideals. There is a scale of values which reveals itself to man via the medium of his emotional life. The human craving for self-realization and self-redemption finds its richest expression not in the abstract intellect or the aggressive will but in the tender and yet profound heart-feeling. We may speak of an ethic of the heart as we speak of an ethic of our actions; morality of the heart, as we speak of morality of our deeds, which is of course based upon the logic of the emotional activity of man. The ethic borrows ideas from the logic and converts them into ideals. The logic of the heart says every feeling is related to an idea; the ethic says, not only to an idea; an idea is not as important as an ideal. It’s related to an idea in retrospect, but it’s also committed to an idea. There is a metaphysical idea which expresses itself in emotional experience; the emotional experience is committed to the achievement of a great idea.

It is a truism in Judaic philosophy that the emotional life is not a neutral area where the norm is inoperative. The Torah has formulated laws – even the Pentateuch – governing not only the external behavior but also the inward activity of man. There are norms pertaining to love – “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself” – how can one be commanded to love if there is no ethic of the heart? I can tell him, give charity, because I can put my hand into my pocket and give him a coin, but how can the Torah command us to love our neighbor, or love thy God, the Lord thy God, with your heart mind and soul? Lo tisna es achicha bilvavecha, You must not hate thy brother. [What] if I want to hate him, [if] he did harm to me – problems which were raised by the medieval scholars. So there was one scholar, Ibn Ezra, [a] great scholar, a bit of a cynic – he himself had a raw deal, rough deal in life; [he] was a pauper [who] had to always to ask, beg for support and no one gave him support – at that time there was no social service, certainly – so he asked, what do you mean, lo sachmod, “do not covet what your friend possesses” – if I am envious what can I do? So he said in a very vulgar way, but it contains the kernel of truth, I have never seen the boy of an illiterate peasant falling in love with the princess. Why? The princess is beautiful; why shouldn’t the boy of the peasant or the slave fall in love with the princess? So the answer is very simple; apparently the heart is not so, so to say, sometimes not overwhelmed by emotion, but has reasons. If something is impractical and impossible to attain the heart retreats. There is a retreat on the part of the emotion, when this emotion is so absurd that it could never be realized, translated into action, into fact. So, if this is the case, the Ibn Ezra says, so all questions are solved. What does it mean? There is a logique de coeur and there is an ethic de coeur. As Adler says, there is of course a possibility to assimilate emotions into my, let’s say, into the whole of my consciousness, my personality; there is also a possibility of holding emotions at bay, of holding emotions at a distance – unless one is an eccentric; but a normal person can actually judge emotions, either disown them or assimilate them, and this is exactly what Judaism has been preaching for many centuries and millennia. There are morally worthy and morally unworthy feelings, and one is duty bound to form the right emotional attitude.

Out of the metaphysic of man, a logic and an ethic of his emotional life, which is subject to intellectual interpretation and axiological normative variation emerged, and it would be up to us to examine both the logical and ethical vistas of our inner world [and] emotional life. Around this our lectures will revolve.

Alright. I’m concluding the portion for today.

[audience member:] The logic and ethic of the heart that you speak of is remarkably similar to the work that is going on now in anthropology on culture value orientation. Would you say that these are the result…

[the Rav:] Yeah, but there [it] is more pragmatic; it’s just a pragmatic approach there. Our approach – of course it results in practical conclusions, but it’s basically metaphysical. Yes, but it’s known; the idea is known; it depends how you utilize it, what you try to infer from that. The main discrepancy will actually emerge when we see what Judaism is doing with it and what moderns, for instance metaphysicians, psychologists […]

[audience member:] The attempt of Heschel to force language…

[the Rav:] I beg your pardon?

[audience member:] The attempt of Professor Heschel to force language portraying these paradoxes these absurdities, making for an impossibility of understanding – is that basic to that, to that leap, to that approach?

[the Rav:] Again, I did not grasp the question.

[audience member:] The Heschel style and the Heschel vocabulary…

[the Rav:] You are speaking about the style or about the philosophy?

[audience member:] I’m talking about the style. He tries to kind of objectify a paradox, an absurdity, a mode of expression which a homo theoreticus can’t follow – is that necessary to a…

[the Rav:] You’re asking me?

[audience member:] I’m asking you.

[the Rav:] I’m not supposed to give the answer… However, I believe that the interpretation of the religious experience should be comprehensible and understandable to everybody. If not, it’s not interpretation. It’s mysticism, if this is the case. I’m not so acquainted with his philosophy, I must say, but if this is the case, it’s mysticism. To objectify a phenomenon means to make it available and accessible to everyone. Otherwise, it’s not an objectified concept.

[audience member:] In other words, the style should be the style of…

[the Rav:] For instance, I have recommended in the reading a book by Kierkegaard, Repetition – it will be very important with regard to the problem of evil. Kierkegaard had a habit of making it as difficult as possible for the reader to understand it. All right, so you say he was a neurotic; that’s what we said. And certainly he didn’t want he didn’t want the reader should do him a favor; he didn’t beg. A modern author always wants to please the reader; the reader should do him a favor and buy his book – I don’t mean buy his book because he’ll pay a few dollars, but he wants to be read by people, and in order to be read by people he’ll try to make the book as plausible and as appealing to the average man as possible. Kierkegaard employed the method in the reverse, to make it as difficult as possible and to limit the circle of readers. If this is the intention of Dr. Heschel as well I don’t know; it’s hard for me to say, but basically, I like to explain concepts in a language which is comprehensible to everybody. It doesn’t mean comprehensible to the man from the street, but the intellectual or man of culture should understand. Whether he’ll agree or disagree is a different problem, but it should be comprehensible.

Did you add what I asked you? I would also ask you to add to this – what is the list, the reading list? To where there is Maimonides, The Guide it is section one, chapter two, yes, correct? It should be section one chapter one and two. Then add something, at least the book of Kohelet, the Ecclesiast. It’s a short book; you can get acquainted with it. And then the book of Job. The book of Job is a big book; as much as possible – particularly the five, six chapters at the beginning, and the last five chapters, last five or six chapters in the book. Because the problem of evil is bound up in the book of Job and the problem of frustration was treated by Kohelet, by the Ecclesiast. Alright.

[audience member:] The next meeting is December 4. You’ll get a notice […]

[voice:] This is the end of lecture two. Just a little bit more tape to go, and that’s the end of this tape. Lecture three will be on the next tape. Goodbye.

End of lecture 2